SHAMANISM

Well, there's a lot to say about shamanism, so I'll try to sort of limit it.

Uh.

First of all.

I actually talk about this in my book. The science of Enlightenment, the notion that you can. Look up on consciousness is sort of like a three layered parfait.

And you have surface ordinary objectified experience that might be called conventional reality, then you have.

The absolute rest on the formless doing.

That is at the very quote Center if we wanted to use that metaphor it's not.

Perfectly, good, but if you imagine it's a sphere and there's surface and then there's what's in the center.

Which is the dharmakaya it's formless?

Then there's all these intermediate realms.

And.

If we think of the spiritual path as a journey from surface to source.

Some People are going to traverse those intermediate realms without any unusual phenomena at all.

They're just gonna go right down.

Some People are going to encounter the pool of poison and pain and trauma and.

Such big time.

Which is sort of the Freudian subconscious some People are going to encounter the unions subconscious gods ghosts ancestors healing abilities?

Etc etc.

The Spirit World basically what native People would refer to as a spirit world.

Some People encounter both the union and the Freudian version of the subconscious so I say some People encounter. Neither they just go right down.

So the

There can be a couple extremes with regards to this map.

Of the journey one is not uncommon, you start so you're on the surface and the journey is not turning 180 degrees away from the world. It's actually turning orthogonal it's turning 90 degrees.

Into an independent demention.

Which is the dimension of depth as opposed to surface?

So now you're going down of course, each level has its own surface right.

So 1 extreme is you go down a little bit and you encounter either the Freudian subconscious or the Union Subconscious.

Uh.

And if it's

The Freudian, you just don't want to go there.

If it's the pleasant side of the union well. That's one thing. But if it's sort of weird, and scary archetypal material. You don't want to go there. So you flail your way back to the service like a drowning person gasping for air. I'm never going to go down there again.

'Cause that's just too weird that's one extreme another extreme which is.

The extreme I recommend.

Is you just keep going down no matter what?

Keep a Plumb Line, a direct vector towards the source.

Um.

Saint John of the I mean, it's not just me that the Christian tradition says the same thing, although they think of it is going up rather than down but it doesn't matter. I mean, the direction of the coordinates grid is doesn't make any difference at all, so Saint John of the cross drew this picture of this mountain.

Mount Carmel, which actually exists in the Holy Land. It's near the city of Haifa in northern Israel show and I visited there. It's pretty cool. It's the origin of the Carmelite Order, which was one of the main meditating orders back in the day.

Anyway, he drew Mount Carmel.

And he talked about subida del Monted Carmella, the ascent of Mount Carmel.

Uh.

And in this metaphor, God or the source is not at the source. It's actually set up at the pinnacle, but it's exactly the same thing.

And on it, he writes.

Nada Nada Nada.

Ian Mount then.

This is how you're going to get there. Nothing nothing nothing and when you finally get to the peak of a mountain.

Nothing with a big capital and.

And then he he shows these like wild monsters and Flowers and things. He says if you want to ascend Mount Carmel.

You cannot allow yourself to be distracted by the Flowers, nor frightened by the Wild Beast. You have to just go straight up so same general idea so the other extreme is no matter what sorts of bouquets or Beasties. You may encounter as you go down. You just keep going down, which in terms of classical.

Drive E Posener would just mean whatever comes up. You just observe just observe just absurd that's an extreme.

Here's another extreme and you go down to a certain level and you get interested in the content of that level usually it's something that involves special powers.

An without realizing it, you turn 90 degrees again and pernicious part of this is you don't know it.

You think you're on a vector to the source. But in fact, you're now going parallel to ordinary experience out into the realms of power exploring them.

And you can spend a lot of time doing that and as I say there's actually nothing wrong with exploring those realms.

Unless.

You think you're still going down.

Then that becomes a shunt away from progress.

What's in between?

So between turning 90 degrees again right you're here on the surface 90 degrees down and then gradually without realizing it. You turn 90 degrees again right now, you're going parallel, but you don't know it.

So 1 extreme is you're only interested in the realms of power.

Lakota Sioux called those People pay shooter, which Azure which actually literally is Medison person or a healer.

Then the other extreme is what I mentioned.

You don't go into those realms at all. You just purify and get insight and Lakota that is referred to as a witch Asha walk home.

A sacred person.

The spectrum of classical shamanism, all over the world and this is the original religion of our species everywhere. There was a time when everyone as far as I.

Anthropologists know everyone sort of had Essentia Lee, the same religion and it was shamanism. This is the old time religion.

Judaism Christianity, Confucianism, what have you they may be old but they're not old the way this is old, they're not 1020 thirty 40,000 years old, OK, so the spectrum of classical shamanism.

Ranges through all the oblique angles.

From pure power to pure purification.

But most shamans that I've ever met are on an intermediate angle. There definitely gaining no self purification insight. There's a component to that vector.

Of going down, but there's also a component out an depending on the relative magnitude of your interest in power, what the spirits have to say versus the Egolessness Oneness and so forth so that that's why I speak of. The spectrum of classical shamanism. It goes all the way and in the power area.

You can actually get.

You can get cultural negatives.

That are very intense for those cultures.

You get you can have very dysfunctional cultures. It's not just modern People that are messed up OK. There are traditional cultures that have really messed up views of the world. It's not uncommon for example, to believe that death is not natural.

Someone dies, it's because someone killed them.

And probably kill them with Madison and buy Medison I mean magic.

Shot so Native American Indians have an entire vocabulary. It's English so they can in talked Intertribal E.

But it's English you would never understand you wouldn't know what it means to shoot Medison at someone, or to get engaged in a Medison war with another tribe.

That's warfare.

In the power realms and they take that absolutely as seriously as warfare on the surface. It's the same deal someone dies go to the shaman? Why did they die?

All those guys up the River shop Madison at us.

And then we got to either shoot arrows at them for shoot. Medison back so it's not necessarily a good thing OK. It really depends on the culture.

I mean, I've I've had friends that for whom Medison Wars were a serious business.

I have to say, I don't share the paradigm but.

I knew it was very real for them and they were from these kinds of cultures and so forth so anyway. There's this spectrum that I call the spectrum of classical shamanism and if like.

Well, I guess maybe this is going into too much detail.

There's a lot of fear in the Navajo culture. For example of shape shape shifters. So there can be some real negatives around some of this stuff OK, so let me tell you a story, a personal story about shamanism.

So.

I.

Years and years ago, I.

Decades ago actually.

I was running a retreat into San.

Steve knows are going to talk about Steve knows the nose. This Medison person. So we were running a retreat at this ranch Doug Boys Ranch.

And this is.

NI under 40 years ago, I think.

So while back maybe not that 35 I guess.

And so.

Doug was very into Native American spirituality, but he'd grown up in Korea. Actually, his father was I guess in the military. So he knew a lot about Asian culture and he wanted the Buddhist teachers to get together with the Native American teachers. So he said. There's a local tall and autumn that's a tribe that anthropologists used to call the Pima Papago.

So there's a local tone Autumn Indian. His name is Rupert and seen us and if you want. He'll do a sweat lodge for you.

Sweat the Sweat Lodge ceremony, so I said, well what is it? Tell me what you know after the retreat we could do this? Sweat lodge so as well? What's a sweat lodge describe it to me, he described it.

Made sense, I could see how it would fit with Buddhist practice and he said. Rupert's a pipe carrier. He's road man in the Native American Church, which is the peyote E religion, which is the North American version of Ayawaska. Basically is a sundancer I said, well what's the Sundance and he described that sort of made sense to me.

So we had the sweat lodge and I remember so that was my first lodge and.

So it's it's out on the rez and there's there's no technology.

He didn't even have electricity in his house at that time I mean. Now he's got a cell phone and you know You Tube segments. And things like that. But you know. Things change right, but back then. He didn't even have electricity I was and.

So anyway.

So I remember

There is this point where?

You know you open the flap and he was running it. The Lakota way. There's different ways of running a sweat lodge. He was doing it. The Lakota way. So the Lakota or eastern Sue. The person that pours the water sits at the at the door. So he opens the door. All this team goes out there is the pristine Sonora Desert.

Without any telephone minds or cars or anything, OK, it look the way it looked 20,000 years ago and the Suns coming down.

And.

It's sort of glancing raise he's full blood Indian just classic looks like something right out of the Smithsonian Institute. So is this profiles long hair. You know 'cause. He can braid your hair in the ceremony. Rights has got the long hair and like Classic Native American features and you could see.

The sun was revealing a chest full of piercing scars.

From the Sundance like.

He'd Sundance 16 times at that time, and that was 3035 years ago.

So.

And it was like.

Oh my God.

This is a time tunnel that were being allowed to enter.

To experience what are?

Really remote ancestors experience.

And it's like it was just amazing to me.

And.

When I got out, I remember crawling out it was pretty.

Hot Lodge.

And.

I remember the first thought that went through my mind.

Oh, this is what they call.

Quote Primitive Religion 'cause Shamanism used to be called primitive religion and the reason for the air quotes is.

Up it was so advanced so subtle so multi leveled so cycle. Spiritually sophisticated weaving group therapy into prayer into the power realms into purification through equanimity into being forced to concentrate because you just can't do anything but concentrate.

So it's like Oh primitive religion and meaning of course.

That when the Europeans came here.

It's true that metal acts is a more advanced tool than a stone axe.

But I guess they assumed that because the physical technology was primitive quote primitive that the Psycho spiritual life of those People as primitive it. It was it was the very antithesis of that, so anyway. That was my first encounter with shamanism. And I'll be seeing Rupert again next month. When I go to Tucson 35. However, many years later we're still doing ceremonies together.